Not complaining about lack of rain (yet) - but the heat! Above 25 degree C - that's just not natural... Not for us, anyway, you Southeners.

I managed to get my inherited mini greenhouse up yesterday with the help of a friend (oh what fun, when you have no idea what it is supposed to look like and have no instructions or anything useful like that...) and I am now proud owner of two tomato plants (local garden centre came good). Hooray! Although at the moment I wouldn't even need the extra protection.

Yeah, here too.
I'm well and truly annoyed with myself.
I decided to irrigate my tunnels yesterday evening, connected up the pump to my rainwater tanks, started it all up on a 1/2 hour countdown timer and went back indoors.
Came back out 1/2 hour later and found the the hose had blown off and instead of nicely moist soil, it was still bone dry and a tankful of water had disappeared.
Wasted a whole 1000 litre tank of saved rainwater and no rain forecast for the foreseeable future.
I do have my second tank full, but that will only keep me going for a week.

Did I say that I'm well and truly annoyed with myself ?

Well done on your new greenhouse Ina, I predict you will wonder how you managed without it soon.
Don't forget to water it though

Green Aura wrote:It has p****d down here for two days straight. Apparently it's been 11C colder here than all points south.

I know, I've been watching that on the weather maps.
It's been getting steadily warmer here with today's forecast reaching 26 degrees, and that forecast also has RAIN on Friday, but with a maximum temperature of 15 C.

I've given up waiting for rain - dry sowing now in the hope I get enough moisture in the near future to germinate seed. The fun bit is cultivating enough to get a seed bed but not so much that the soil breaks down into dust - dust will just compact with the first shower and form a hard crust.

Not long, there is a bend (actually more of a curve) about every 20 - 30 Km but the Hay Plain on this route is about 140km wide with nothing in between except the odd parking bay. It is reputed to be the second flattest plain on earth after the Sahara. The surrounding country is not much more entertaining, about 4 of the 6 hour drive is across similar saltbush country but not so extensive and flat.
This part of NSW is rapidly becoming a very big irrigated cotton growing area - note the white fluffy stuff on the side of the road that has blown off the road trains transporting the modules.

Oh dear. I'm sure that's good commercially but sounds like a potential nightmare for the environment.

On a lighter note - we have all that white fluffy stuff on the side of the road too but up here, in the north of Scotland, it's bog cotton growing in the peat. A very elderly neighbour told us that as schoolchildren they would be taken to pick this then, they spun and wove it into little hankies for Mothers' Day presents.

Maggie

Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy

Odsox wrote:
Well done on your new greenhouse Ina, I predict you will wonder how you managed without it soon.
Don't forget to water it though

Sorry to hear about your loss of water - I would be , er, rather annoyed, too, to put it politely...

It's only a 2x2m tomato house, I think they call it. So no infrastructure (but I put up a small shelf kind of thing), and a rather wobbly frame. Tried to pin it down as best as I could - let's wait for the next storm!

diver I know just how you feel - especially about the water meter. The rain made it here yesterday and hopefully the allotments up the hill are as gently watered as the back garden. The weather radar on the met office website suggests that you may also have rain today.